Meet Me On The Interweb
by Kurohana Hitsugi
Summary: Riddler is forced to hide out with Joker and Scarecrow. The only trouble is that he's an annoying little sod. So Joker and Scarecorw do the only thing they can think of: they set him up for internet dating.
1. Chapter 1

"Unnnnnnngg..." Edward Nigma moaned in despair. Joker looked over at him, glaring.

"Unnnnnnnnnnnnnngg..." Edward exclaimed again. Joker's glare intensified and Jonathan Crane turned to give a menacing stare in the puzzle master's direction. Edward merely slumped his head into his hand.

"UNNNNNNNG..." Edward moaned, almost yelling. Joker at Cane stood from their chairs and appeared to loom over an unnoticing Nigma.

"What is it?" Joker and Crane said through gritted teeth and clenched jaws. Nigma spun away from the computer on the desk chair, turning to the pair. Riddler looked absently at Crane's hand, itching to find his fear gas his and at Joker's balled fists, itching to punch a hole in his face.

"I'm boooooooooooored." he whined. Crane's hand found his gas.

"That's IT." he proclaimed, gassing Riddler and pushing him out of the desk chair and into the corner. Joker watched contemplatively as Nigma shook back and forth chanting "I can't be mediocre, I can't be the common man, I'm sorry father..."

"What are we supposed to do about him NOW?" Joker asked, turning to look at Crane who was typing away on the computer keyboard. Crane grunted slightly, and waved him off with a hand. Joker grinned and leaned over, peering over Crane's shoulder. The website displayed was done up in cheesy shades of blue and pink, and had pictures of happy people holding onto each other. At first Joker thought it might be a site for a mental hospital, but realized quickly from the title of the site that it was, in fact

"Internet dating?" Joker asked. Crane nodded without turning to Joker.

"It's the only option, don't you see?" Crane said. "He's got far too much time on his hands. This is the obvious answer. Help me fill it out."

Joker looked it over.

" 'First Section : Basic Information' " Joker read aloud. " 'Name.' Well, it's not as if we can type in 'Riddler', or 'Edward Nigma'. His birthname was Nashton, right? So how about 'Edward Nashton'?" Crane nodded.

" 'Height'." Crane mused, looking over at the now slumbering (and snoring) Ridder. " 'Six Feet and One Inch'."

" 'Gender' is 'Male'. 'Interest' is 'Women'." Joker said, pointing to the next box down. "It is women, right?" Crane turn to stare at the snoring supervillain again. He shrugged.

"Let's put that in. At the least he can make a new friend." Crane said. " 'Sexual Preferences'-"  
>" 'General... Sexual... Deviance...' " Joker typed in. Though Crane rolled his eyes he did nothing to correct it.<p>

" 'Initiated by Me'. " Crane said, typing simultaneously. Joker nodded.

"Mmm. He is the pompously blunt give-me-whatever-I-want type." Joker concluded. They'd come to the penultimate section: 'Personality Traits/Likes and Dislikes'. The pair of villains looked at one another, and soon there was a battle for the keyboard in progress.

"Genius!" Joker typed, pushing the wheeled desk chair aside.

"Romantic!" Scarecrow typed, ramming himself into Joker's side.

"Self Righteous Bastard!" Joker typed...

"Intelligent!" Scarecrow typed.

"Chivalrous!"

"Arrogant!"

"Confident!" with that final retort, Jonathan clicked the 'next' button and they were finally at the end of the process: 'Personal Information'.

" 'Email' '.com', 'Phone' '212-743-3537' " Joker typed in, to a questioning look from Crane. "What? Nigma's the only smart one here?"

They both looked at the final box. 'Picture: Upload_(BROWSE)'

"Can we use a picture of him?" Joker asked. Crane tapped on the table in thought.

"His face isn't widely known. Not even the Bat knows what the face behind the mask looks like now." Scarecrow pointed out. Joker nodded.

"To the file labeled "Vicki Vale" " Joker said and left-clicked with a flourish. The file opened not just tens, nor hundreds but thousands of pictures of Edward Nigma: topless, wearing a suit, wearing a dress-

"You're sure it's women?"

-wearing nothing at al-

"Dear god in heaven, my eyes."

"I never knew he had a belly-button tattoo... Go Nigma!"  
>-and wearing a spandex suit with hundreds of question marks.<p>

"He's just so full of himself!" Crane commented, still in shock. Joker nodded with a condescending smirk.

"This one. He's wearing a black suit with a white tie, no green at all." Joker pointed to one in which Edward looked as though he was modeling the suit.

"Is that Armani with the cuffs peering, or peeking?" Crane muses aloud. Joker looked at him oddly.

"Not women, huh?"

They clicked upload, and in seconds Edward Nashton was floating about in cyberspace, waiting for science - or what passes for science in the Internet - to find him a suitable life partner.


	2. King of the Castle

Edward was preoccupied; hacking into the Gotham mainframe will do that to you. So could you blame him for the cry of rage that occurred when a pop-up from a dating website filled all 17 of his screens? No, not at all. And worse yet, he noticed that each and every one of them was a response that simply said "Edward, you have ONE match!". He spluttered. He would never degrade himself to such a thing as Internet dating. He scoffed at those who did. And yet, upon clicking (for he was a curious tabby, after all) he found a response from one (1) Viola Williams to his (HIS?) profile on .com. There was no mistaking it; the profile had his name ("My REAL name..." he hissed through clenched jaws) and a picture ("Last year's Armani shoot...") of him as well. And it was filled in. Some of the comments (arrogant) made him clench his jaw tighter, while others (general sexual deviance) made his entire pale face flush with red. The email they'd listed wasn't one of the thousands of dummies he'd made for not-so-legal activities, but his real one, the one he'd been using since he worked at Wayne Corp ("pearls before swine, I was FAR too good for them..."), the one he only gave out to a select group of people. And his number was his personal cell phone! What was happening?

"What is GOING ON HERE?" he hollered, his fists clenched and his arms crossed. Along with the pouted lip he looked at bit little the annoying child he'd been years ago.

Joker poked his head around the corner, the left tuft of his unruly green wisps of hair smoldering and wearing an apron that read "Kiss the Cook". He looked from Edward to the screen, gave a little gasp and stuck his icing covered spatula in his mouth.

Scarecrow's head appear as he rose from the trapdoor with an eerily spiderlike motion. His reaction to the sight of a fuming Nigma was to go stand as close to Joker as possible. Joker continued to gnaw on the spatula.

"What... What is THIS?" Edward said, pointing to the screen. Joker gave a noncommittal shrug and Crane edged further behind Joker.

Edward continued to glare, and Crane finally step out, hands offered as if in apology.

"We had to do it, Edward." He pleaded. Edward looked down, still pissed but curious.

"Why?" Edward asked. Scarecrow looked back to Joker with a help-me gaze. Joker grinned around the spatula and made a pushing motion with his open hands. Crane gave a whimper of unhappiness but continued with the narrative.

"W-well, all you do is sulk around, making riddles and puzzles, and planting bombs and planning schemes and moping about who knows what, but we thought that maybe you could do something else." Crane said. Edward glared hatefully.

"Are you saying that my contributions to this TEAM aren't good enough?" Edward asked. Crane shook his head furiously. Joker nodded and grinned, lounging against the wall like a cat, his grin fixed in place not by the toxin but by the absolute joy he felt while watching others be tormented or majorly inconvenienced.  
>"No no, not at all! You're a very valuable member, but... The things is.. The thing is..." Crane was interrupted by a wet popping noise as Joker pulled the spatula from his mouth, licked completely clean.<p>

"What he's saying is that you're annoying as hell and we think that if you got laid you'd be less so. Ergo, Internet dating." Joker concluded, heading back for the kitchen.

"What do you mean 'annoying as hell'?" Edward called to Joker. "And you'd better put your hair out and wash that spatula before you continue ruining our kitchen." Joker waved him off with a hand gesture and a yeah yeah as he re-entered the kitchen, only to return a few moments later, de-aproned and not on fire.

"He's right you know." Crane said. "You are annoying as hell." Edward gave a gasp of disbelief. "But apparently there's SOMEONE in the world that actual likes your self centered personality." Crane pointed to the picture of the pretty woman with light brown hair and deep, intelligent green eyes.

"Ohwhhee! That one's a looker! You could have some fun, Nigma!" Joker jeered at him, with a lewd wink. Riddler turned a bright shade of pink, and began pulling on his shirt collar as if the air in the room was insufficient.

"Not everything is about... Having fun, Joker." Nigma said, looking away awkwardly. Joker looked him over, his eyes widening in understanding.

"Have you not ever-"

"Of COURSE I HAVE!" Edward hisses angrily. "But not..."

"With a woman?" Joker asked. "You know, it's okay, we've all dabbled. HAVEN'T we, Crane?" Crane turned red.

"Of course with a woman, why in earth does everyone assume that I drive on the other side! And-and as for that other thing, I'm not going to ask and I'd like it very much if we never brought it up again."

"Me as well." Crane put in.

"Then what?" Joker asked. Nigma's shoulders caved in a he hunched himself into a ball in the desk chair that he'd sat back down in.

"I haven't... You know, in..." he held up six fingers.

"Six weeks?" Riddler shook his head.

"Six months?" Another head shake.  
>"Six YEARS?" Riddle gave an ashamed little nod of his head.<p>

"Ever since I became the Riddler, I've been too busy to think of... Other things." he said. Joker appeared to be considering Riddler.

"Seriously?" Joker asked. "but you do, you know... Clean the pipes?"

Riddler's face went even darker.

"Well, yes, but..." Joker clapped his hands

"Good, you're not a complete failure as a man and slash or a human being." Joker said. "it's something."

Riddler gave Joker another glare.

"Do you think she'll actually like me?" Nigma asked, nearly musing.

"What's not to like?" Joker asked. "You know, besides the obnoxious personality and that awful ginger hair and that stupid pasty complexion. Well, aside from all that, you'll be fine. At least you're spiffy."


	3. A Mans Man part One

Edward turned, observing himself in his full length mirror. He was wearing a dark forest green suit with black pinstripes and a purple shirt with white pinstripes along with a jet black tie. His hair was combed down neatly for the first time in months, as his OCD kept him pulling at it and running his hands through it in moments of stress and anxiety. His self-fawning was cut short by a cough from behind him. He turned to find Joker lounging among his black sheets and green pillows.

"What are you doing here?" Edward asked, turning back to the mirror. Joker gave an almost inaudible snort of derision.

"Checking back in on 'he who shall not stoop to Internet dating'." Joker said, mocking Edward in a high falsetto. Joker raised his eyebrows at Edward, licking his lips and pointing to the mirror as if to say "so what's all this?".

"I thought that I might as well see what this 'Viola' is like, though I doubt she'll be very interesting." Edward said, fixing his tie.

"Oh. Oh is that so. Is that why you've been in here preening for seven hours?" Joker asked pointedly. Riddler turned all the way around to look at Joker.

"Has it really been 7 hours?" Joker nodded. "Oh. Well. Was it worth it?" Joker considered, then gave a slow nod. "Well then. Good. I'll be off."

"Don't forget to tell her how modest you are!" Joker called after Nigma.

-

The restaurant that they had agreed to meet at was the infamous Seven97, the five star restaurant at 97 7th Street, considered on par if not better than RAW, Gotham's most expensive sushi place. There reason for Seven was that there was no way Riddler was going to eat raw fish. It didn't matter where it came from or anything, it was raw, and that went against all possible moral coding that he had left. Riddler arrived at the restaurant at 7:00, the agreed upon time. The table he was shown to was already inhabited by Viola Williams, his date. She looked up from the linen cloth.

"You're late." She said. Edward cleared his throat and fixed his tie, suddenly feeling nervous. My, it HAD been a long time, hadn't it?

"Fashionably, I'm certain." Edward replied, sliding into his seat.


End file.
